US: Skilling's Lawyer Portrays an Accuser as Out of Touch
by Alexei Barrionuevo, The New York TimesFebruary 16th, 2006A lawyer for Jeffrey K. Skilling, a former Enron chief executive, tried Wednesday to portray the head of the company's broadband unit as an out-of-touch manager who was criticized for his free-spending ways and did not even know how many employees were working under him.

WORLD: Shell Makes Record $23bn Profitby Michael Harrison, The IndependentFebruary 3rd, 2006The oil giant Royal Dutch Shell defended itself yesterday against charges of profiteering at the expense of motorists and householders after announcing the biggest profit in UK corporate history.

US: 10 Enron Players: Where They Landed After the Fallby staff, The New York TimesJanuary 29th, 2006KENNETH L. LAY and his second in command, Jeffrey K. Skilling, were the public faces of Enron, painting a rosy picture of strong profits and healthy businesses. But as the facts began to tumble out, in the fall of 2001, the company swiftly collapsed, taking with it the fortunes and retirement savings of thousands of employees.

US: Big Test Looms for Prosecutors at Enron Trialby Kurt Eichenwald, The New York TimesJanuary 26th, 2006"For the government, if they lose the Enron case, it will be seen as a symbolic failure of their rather significant campaign against white-collar crime," said John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School. "It will be seen as some evidence that some cases are too complicated to be brought into the criminal justice process."

US: As Profit Soars, Companies Pay US Less for Gas Rightsby Edmund L. Andrews, The New York TimesJanuary 23rd, 2006At a time when energy prices and industry profits are soaring, the federal government collected little more money last year than it did five years ago from the companies that extracted more than $60 billion in oil and gas from publicly owned lands and coastal waters.

BOLIVIA: Bolivia’s Morales rejects US dominationby Hal Weitzman, The Financial TimesJanuary 22nd, 2006Evo Morales was sworn in on Sunday as Bolivia’s first indigenous president in a historic and emotional ceremony that set the tone for his new government, promising to move much the profits of Bolivia's natural resources to the people of Bolivia.

US: Taking Enron to Taskby Carrie Johnson, Washington PostJanuary 18th, 2006Sean M. Berkowitz and a small group of government lawyers will be in the spotlight in the Jan. 30 trial of Enron's former leaders. The case is the capstone in the cleanup after an era of business misconduct that left investors billions of dollars poorer. The outcome could shape the public's -- and history's -- judgment of how effective it was.

US: Prosecutors Shift Focus on Enronby Alexei Barrionuevo, The New York TimesJanuary 11th, 2006Government lawyers who will try the case against Enron's former chief executives, Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, have signaled that they intend to spend less time befuddling jurors with talk of Enron's accounting.

US: Moving Mountainsby Erik Reece, Orion MagazineJanuary 9th, 2006It is the people of Appalachia who pay the highest price for the rest of the country's cheap energy—through contaminated water, flooding, cracked foundations and wells, bronchial problems related to breathing coal dust, and roads that have been torn up and turned deadly by speeding coal trucks.

US: Call It the Deal of a Lifetimeby Landon Thomas, Jr., The New York TimesJanuary 8th, 2006It has been a wrenching professional and personal reversal for Michael Kopper, who three years ago became the first Enron executive to plead guilty to criminal charges and cut a deal with the government. Mr. Kopper was also the first high-ranking Enron employee to publicly admit to lying and stealing - in his case, more than $16 million - from the company.

US: U.S. says Skilling mislead the SECCNNJanuary 4th, 2006Prosecutors intend to argue that former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling attempted to deceive the Securities and Exchange Commission in a deposition he gave soon after the company's bankruptcy about his reason for selling 500,000 shares of Enron stock, according to a motion filed in a Houston federal court Tuesday.

NIGERIA: Blood Flows With Oil in Poor Villagesby Lydia Polgreen, The New York TimesJanuary 1st, 2006For months a pitched battle has been fought between communities that claim authority over this village and the right to control what lies beneath its watery ground: a potentially vast field of crude oil that has caught the attention of a major energy company.

RUSSIA: In Russia, Pollution Is Good for Businessby Andrew E. Kramer, The New York TimesDecember 28th, 2005One of the paradoxes of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change is that companies in Russia and other Eastern European countries, which are among the world's largest producers of greenhouse gases, are poised to earn hundreds of millions of dollars through trading their rights to release carbon dioxide into the air.

US: Former Top Enron Accountant Pleads Guilty to Fraudby Simon Romero and Vikas Bajas, The New York TimesDecember 28th, 2005The former chief accounting officer of Enron pleaded guilty today to a single felony charge of securities fraud and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, giving a significant lift to the government's case against the two leading figures in the scandal over Enron's collapse.

ARGENTINA: The War for Gold in Catamarcaby Darío Aranda, Página 12 NewspaperDecember 18th, 2005Water that is undrinkable. Air that is better left unbreathed. A community impoverished, living above mountains of gold. These are some of the contradictions of Andalgalá, a town of 17,000 inhabitants in Catamarca, Argentina, 240 kilometres from the provincial capital, home for ten years now to the largest gold and copper mine in the country, and one of the largest in the world.

AZERBAIJAN: From Boom to Bust and Backby Guy Chazan, Wall Street JournalNovember 29th, 2005Azerbaijan prepares for another round of oil wealth and risk as a consortium led by BP gets ready to pump one million barrels a day from a big offshore field to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

US: Testimony by Oil Executives Is Challengedby Edmund L. Andrews, New York TimesNovember 17th, 2005Senators from both parties demanded Wednesday that several oil executives explain statements they made to Congress last week about their ties to the energy task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney.

IRAQ: OPEC and the Economic Conquest of Iraq by Greg Palast, Harper's/gregpalast.comOctober 24th, 2005According to insiders and to documents obtained from the State Department, the neocons, once in command, are now in full retreat. Iraq's system of oil production, after a year of failed free-market experimentation, is being re-created almost entirely on the lines originally laid out by Saddam Hussein.

ECUADOR: Amazon Indians say Texaco left damageby Gonzalo Solano, Associated PressOctober 20th, 2005About 50 Cofan Indians, some holding handkerchiefs over their faces to fend off an acrid chemical stench, gathered around two contaminated open pits they say were left behind and never adequately cleaned up by the former Texaco Corp.

US: EPA probes alleged mud dumping in Alaskaby Mark Thiessen, The Associated PressOctober 18th, 2005Federal regulators are investigating the alleged dumping of thousands of gallons of tainted mud by a Texas drilling company into the Beaufort Sea on Alaska's northern coast, a spokeswoman for Alaska's environmental protection agency said Tuesday.

US: Is It Too Late to Ride the Energy Bandwagon?by Tim Gray, The New York TimesOctober 9th, 2005Natural resources funds invest in everything from gold miners to timber companies. But oil-related stocks, ranging from drillers like the Apache Corporation to services providers like Halliburton, tend to predominate. Interest in the sector stems from its recent double-digit returns as well as worldwide developments - including the Iraq war, China's torrid growth and Hurricane Katrina - that have pushed oil prices higher and higher.

RUSSIA: Prosecutors raid Yukos-affiliated cos.The Associated PressOctober 5th, 2005Investigators raided a number of companies connected to the shattered Yukos oil empire, prosecutors said Wednesday, as part of a $7 billion money-laundering probe.

EUROPE: Europe's 'dirty 30' namedNews 24October 4th, 2005Coal-fired power stations in Greece, Germany and Spain top a new table of Europe's dirtiest electricity plants, the environmental group WWF International said on Tuesday.

US: A Quest for Oil Collides With Nature in Alaskaby Felicity Barringer, The New York TimesOctober 2nd, 2005The 217,000 acres of windblown water and mottled tundra here on the North Slope of Alaska, separating Teshekpuk Lake from the Beaufort Sea, are home in summer to 50,000 to 90,000 migratory birds. This corner of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve is also thought to be brimming with oil.

KAZAKHSTAN: Mobil, CIA secrets may come out BloombergAugust 25th, 2005In the mid-1990s, long before oil prices topped $60 a barrel, U.S. companies sought access to Kazakhstan, a Central Asian nation that the U.S. State Department says will be among the world's top 10 producers of crude by 2015.

US: Mobil, CIA Secrets May Come Out un Bribery Trial of Oil Adviserby David Glovin, BloombergAugust 24th, 2005Federal prosecutors say Giffen, a New York investment banker who became an official in Kazakhstan's government, cemented his power by bribing Kazakh leaders with $84 million that Amoco Corp., Mobil Oil Co., Phillips Petroleum Co. and Texaco Inc. paid to win access to Kazakh fields. In January, Giffen goes on trial in federal district court in New York in one of the largest overseas criminal bribery cases ever.

US: The Big Tug of War Over Unocalby Steve Lohr, New York TimesJuly 6th, 2005As the lobbying heats up in Washington over Unocal, a midsize American oil company, the battle lines in the takeover contest are now drawn clearly, if oddly, by its suitors.

COLOMBIA: Terrified Farmers Sue BPby Robert Verkaik, The Independent OnlineJune 21st, 2005BP is facing a £15m compensation claim from a group of Colombian farmers who say that the British oil company took advantage of a regime of terror by government paramilitaries to profit from the construction of a 450-mile pipeline.

US: Electricity from Cow WasteENNJune 17th, 2005Environmental Power Corporation , in collaboration with Dairyland Power Cooperative, is formally commissioning the first of its electricity generating anaerobic digester systems.

BRAZIL: Homegrown Fuel Supply Helps Drivers Breathe Easyby Marla Dickerson , L.A. TimesJune 15th, 2005Today about 40% of all the fuel that Brazilians pump into their vehicles is ethanol, known here as alcohol, compared with about 3% in the United States. No other nation is using ethanol on such a vast scale. The change wasn't easy or cheap. But 30 years later, Brazil is reaping the return on its investment in energy security while the U.S. writes checks for $50-a-barrel foreign oil.

US: A Shift to Greenby Miguel Bustillo, Los Angeles TimesJune 12th, 2005Bucking the Bush administration's position that tougher rules would harm the U.S. economy, Fortune 500 companies including General Electric Co., Duke Energy Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in recent months have championed stronger government measures to reduce industrial releases of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas that scientists have linked to rising temperatures and sea levels.

WORLD: Shell Predicts Two Decades of Rising Energy Pricesby Michael Harrison, The IndependentJune 6th, 2005Worldwide energy prices are set to rise over the next two decades as individual countries become more concerned about ensuring security of supply and governments take a more pro-active role in dictating energy policy and regulating markets, according to the latest global outlook from the oil giant Shell.

EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Stripped of Its Wealthby David Leigh, GuardianJune 2nd, 2005This mini country located under the armpit of the West African coast has immense quantities of oil; it is currently exporting $4.5bn worth (about £2.5bn) a year. Yet such an astonishing bonanza appears to have done most of the country's citizens no good. The IMF reported bluntly in May: "Unfortunately, this wealth has not yet led to measurable improvements in living conditions."

US: BP Admits Workers Were Not Root Cause of Blast
by Anne Belli, Houston ChronicleMay 31st, 2005Union officials have said they expressed concerns about the location of the trailer as well as BP's use of the vent stack as opposed to a flare system. Had a flare been in place, the excess liquid and vapors likely would have been burned off and the accident may have been prevented.

NIGERIA: Shell Extends Gas Flaring Deadline by Sopuruchi Onwuka, Daily Champion May 31st, 2005A major hiccup on government's effort to terminate gas flaring by 2008 has occured as oil multinational, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) said the official deadline will no longer be realistic to the firm.

UK: Climate-Change Prompts Rebellion at Exxonby Terry Macalister, The GuardianMay 24th, 2005A major British institutional investor will tomorrow oppose the re-election ExxonMobil's chief executive on the grounds that the world's biggest stock-listed oil company talks down links between man-made CO2 emissions and climate change.

US: Coal Plants Could Be Much Cleaner
by Kenneth J. Stier, New York TimesMay 23rd, 2005Even with gas prices following oil prices into the stratosphere and power companies turning back to coal, most new plants - about nine out of 10 on the drawing board - will not use integrated gasification combined-cycle technology.

US: Clean-Energy Mega-Mall by Amanda Griscom Little, GristMay 20th, 2005The developer of a new mall planned for Upstate New York vows that it will be the closest thing to an "Apollo Project" for renewable energy that America has ever seen -- one that grows the economy, strengthens national security by encouraging energy independence, and protects the environment.

MEXICO: Pemex Accidents Reveal Troubled Oil Monopoly
by James C. McKinley and Elisabeth Malkin, New York TimesMay 15th, 2005The recent spate of accidents highlights the complicated symbiotic relationship between the company and the government that is supposed to regulate it. Pemex provides the government with 40 percent of its income, and the environmental agency charged with policing the oil company is woefully underfinanced.

US: No New Refineries in 29 Years by Jad Mouawad, New York TimesMay 9th, 2005Over the last quarter-century, the number of refineries in the United States dropped to 149, less than half the number in 1981. Because companies have upgraded and expanded their aging operations, refining capacity during that time period shrank only 10 percent from its peak of 18.6 million barrels a day. At the same time, gasoline consumption has risen by 45 percent.

AMAZON: Victims of 'Toxico'
by Andrew Gumbel, IndependentApril 27th, 2005Environmentalists estimate around 2.5 million acres of rainforest were compromised or destroyed in Texaco's search for oil in Ecuador. It is a disaster that has left the jungle ravaged and its people dying of cancer.

US: Harvard Divests from PetroChinaAssociated PressApril 7th, 2005Harvard University, after months of pressure from student activists, will sell an estimated $4.4 million (A€3.42 million) stake in PetroChina, whose parent company is closely tied to the Sudanese government, university officials said.

INDIA: In Dabhol Lawyers, Leopards Dare Treadby Braden Reddall, ReutersFebruary 18th, 2005The $2.9 billion plant that bankrupt U.S. energy giant Enron built was a technological breakthrough and still represents the largest single foreign investment in India. But since shutting down almost four years ago, it has proven more of an embarrassment than a showcase.

EU: Leading Kyoto 'Carbon Revolution'by Stephen Mulvey, BBC newsFebruary 15th, 2005The first phase of post-Kyoto emissions trading (2005-2007) may see too many industry allowances for the scheme to drive a major clean-up of European industry.

CHINA: China had role in Yukos split-upBBCFebruary 2nd, 2005China lent Russia $6billion to help the Russian government renationalise the key Yuganskneftegas unit of oil group Yukos, it has been revealed.

UK: Oil Firms Fund Campaign to Deny Climate Changeby David Adam, Guardian (UK)January 27th, 2005Lobby groups funded by the US oil industry such as ExxonMobil are targeting Britain in a bid to play down the threat of climate change and derail action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, leading scientists have warned.

RUSSIA: State Steps in for Yukos Unit by Catherine Belton, The Guardian December 23rd, 2004Russia's state owned oil firm Rosneft has bought the mystery winner of Yukos' prize production unit in a move that nationalises 11% of the country's oil output even as a legal battle rages in America over the sale.

NIGERIA: Five convicted in Enron barge caseAgence France-PresseNovember 4th, 2004A JURY in Houston, Texas, today delivered criminal convictions against four bankers and an Enron executive in a case stemming from a money-losing project of electricity-generating barges off the coast of Nigeria.
The trial stems from an investigation of the energy trader's collapse three years ago.

NORWAY: Former Statoil executive to pay fine over Iran dealWall Street JournalOctober 19th, 2004The former head of international operations for Statoil ASA, Richard Hubbard, will follow his former employer's lead and pay a fine handed down by Norwegian police for his role in a business deal with an Iranian consulting company.

NIGERIA: Fuel Price Strike Suspendedby Staff Writers, afrol NewsOctober 14th, 2004Nigeria's trade union now gives the government two weeks to reduce fuel prices while temporarily calling off the nation-wide strike. Negotiations between trade union leaders and the federal government started today, after trade unions during four days have demonstrated their power to cause an almost complete stand-still throughout the country.

WORLD: Shell Outsourcingby Mark Tran, Guardian (London)April 28th, 2004Royal Dutch Shell, the embattled oil giant, said today it will cut up to 2,800 jobs as it relocates its global technology division. IT operations, now concentrated in the UK, the Netherlands and the US, are to be shifted to India or Malaysia, where Shell already employs about 1,000 people in a technology support centre.

Nigeria: Shell Revamp to Cost JobsBBC NewsMarch 22nd, 2004The oil company Royal Dutch Shell has said it plans to cut jobs in Nigeria, so it can invest more money in better production methods. The aim is to raise output by 500,000 barrels a day within two years, says the head of Shell's Nigeria operations, Chris Finlayson.

UK: Shell's Top Executive Is Forced to Step Downby Heather Timmons, New York TimesMarch 4th, 2004The top executive of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the world's third-largest oil company, was forced to resign on Wednesday after an internal investigation into the company's surprise disclosure in January that it had overstated its oil and natural gas reserves by 20 percent.

Libya: US Allows Oil Groups Inby Edward Alden and Salamander Davoudi, Financial TimesFebruary 27th, 2004The US on Thursday said it would let US oil companies reopen negotiations with the Libyan government over potentially lucrative oil leases that have been off- limits since Washington imposed sanctions on the government of Muammer Gadaffi in 1986.

Libya: Move May Pave Way for Return of US Oil Groupsby Kevin Morrison, Financial TimesDecember 29th, 2003Libya's pledge to dismantle its programme to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) could pave the way for the return of US oil companies that left the North African country in 1986 when then President Ronald Reagan imposed sanctions on the country.

Caucasus: World Bank, ABN Amro Back BTC Pipelineby Oliver Balch, Guardian (London)December 8th, 2003Later this week, the Dutch bank is expected to lend its weight officially to the 1,760km Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which even in Mr Burrett's own words is "seen as highly controversial". Campaigners have taken issue with the idea to run a pipeline through Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Turkish coast ever since it was first mooted in the early 1990s.

Cuba: Havana's Black Goldby Tom Fawthrop, BBCNovember 13th, 2003Cuba's fast-improving energy sector - with domestic oil production now at 4.1m tons a year and accounting for 80% of the country's energy needs - is expected to eventually ease the country's current economic woes.

Caspian Sea: Oil Pipeline Wins World Bank Loanby Peter Behr, Washington PostNovember 4th, 2003A planned 1,100-mile pipeline to carry oil from the Caspian Sea toward world markets won a $125 million loan commitment from a World Bank funding unit today. The International Finance Corp. approved the loan after the Azerbaijan government agreed to audited international reviews on how it spends $29 billion in future revenue from oil projects.

Caspian: Plan for World's Biggest Pipelineby Philip Thornton and Charles Arthur, The Independent (London)October 28th, 2003The answer is the world's longest export pipeline, a 1,090-mile, 42-inch wide pipe snaking its way within a 500-metre corridor from the Caspian Sea port of Baku, in Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan, in Turkey, via some of the world's most unstable and conflict-ridden nations. The project will cost up to $4 billion (2.4bn) and is being built by a consortium of 11 companies led by BP. Almost three quarters of the funding will come in the form of bank loans including some $600 million of taxpayers' money.

Bolivia: Unrest Over Natural Gas Projectby Mark Mulligan, Financial TimesOctober 1st, 2003Trade unionists, indigenous groups and farmers have joined forces in recent weeks to protest against government economic policies and private sector plans to export the country's abundant natural gas supplies from a port in Chile, a historic enemy of the landlocked country.

The Dutch arm of Shell is in negotiations with the Tanzanian government for licences to prospect four deep-sea areas or "blocks" in the Rufiji delta and another four off Zanzibar. Petrobras of Brazil is bidding for a block about 15 miles (24km) off Mafia, while the French company Maurel & Prom hopes to drill on Mafia itself and areas of Mkuranga district on the coastal mainland. In time, the whole western flank of the Rift Valley inland may be drilled, as seismic and hydrocarbon tests have shown that this too has potential for oil.

World: Murky Business in Oilby Miren Gutierrez, Inter Press ServiceAugust 20th, 2003A key factor is how a country makes its money. Oil hurts. Countries that make their money from oil have usually neglected to develop a middle class and solid political institutions.

Ecuador: Oil, Indigenous Peoples and the EnvironmentInterPress ServiceJune 20th, 2003The Superior Justice Court of the northern city of Nueva Loja, on the Colombian border, accepted May 14 a lawsuit against the US transnational oil company Texaco. Representatives of 30,000 indigenous people and campesinos affected by oil exploration and extraction in the northeastern provinces of Sucumbos and Orellana have been working on the case for almost a decade.

USA: Interior Department Investigates Official's Role as Oil Lobbyistby Katharine Q. Seelye, The New York TimesMay 12th, 2003Responding to a request from Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut and a candidate for president, the inspector general of the Interior Department is investigating possible conflicts of interest involving a top Interior official who used to be a lobbyist for the oil, gas and mining interests he now regulates.

Venezuela: The Fight to Regain Position in Oil Marketby Humberto Marquez, Inter Press ServiceApril 7th, 2003Venezuela's state oil monopoly, PDVSA, one of the biggest companies in the Southern Hemisphere, is facing the challenge of holding onto its status as one of the world's leading oil firms after a two-month lockout that crippled output and the dismissal of nearly half of the company's executives.

Russia: Moscow Eyes Oil Markets in Asiaby Sergei Blagov, Inter Press ServiceApril 1st, 2003MOSCOW, Apr. 1 (IPS) -- Moscow is planning to develop new markets in Asia for its crude oil and become an alternative to the volatile Middle East. In the blueprint are big pipeline projects to boost its oil exports to countries such as Japan -- the second biggest importer of oil in the world after the United States -- and China, the world's third largest oil consumer.

Iraq: US Army Depots Named After Oil Giantsby Neela Banerjee, New York TimesMarch 27th, 2003The subtleties surrounding the sensitive role oil plays in the Iraqi war may have eluded the United States Army. Deep in some newspaper coverage yesterday was a report that the 101st Airborne Division had named one central Iraq outpost Forward Operating Base Shell and another Forward Operating Base Exxon.

LIBYA: Shell Signs $200m Dealby Mark Tran, Guardian (London)March 25th, 2003Shell today marked its return to Libya after an absence of more than a decade by signing a $200m (110.6m) gas exploration deal with the former pariah state. The agreement - described by the oil giant as a landmark deal - was signed in Tripoli, coinciding with the groundbreaking visit to Libya by the prime minister, Tony Blair.

Nigeria: Oil Production Shut Down Due to Local Violenceby Toye Olori, Inter Press ServiceMarch 22nd, 2003Nigeria's petroleum industry may not benefit from the bombardment of Iraq by the United Stated-led coalition after ethnic clashes last week forced multi-national companies to shut down of operations in Warri, one of the major oil-producing cities in the Niger Delta region.

USA: Cheney is Still Paid by Pentagon Contractorby Robert Bryce in Austin, Texas and Julian Borger in Washington, The GuardianMarch 12th, 2003Halliburton, the Texas company which has been awarded the Pentagon's contract to put out potential oil-field fires in Iraq and which is bidding for postwar construction contracts, is still making annual payments to its former chief executive, the vice-president Dick Cheney.

USA: Firms Set for Postwar Contractsby Danny Penman and agencies, The GuardianMarch 11th, 2003The American government is on the verge of awarding construction contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild Iraq once Saddam Hussein is deposed.

Canada: War May Be Hell But It's Profitableby Rick Westhead, Toronto StarMarch 10th, 2003The invasion of Iraq hasn't even begun and already Rubar Sandi is drawing up post-war plans to repair decrepit oil wells, overhaul the financial services sector and revamp its economy.

The New Oil Orderby Michael Renner, Foreign Policy in FocusFebruary 14th, 2003We take a look at the geopolitics of oil and the role they play in Washington's war on Iraq.

USA: Corporations, War, Youby Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the CorporationFebruary 6th, 2003One thing is clear about the Bush administration's current rush to war: It has nothing to do with protecting U.S. security.

USA: The Kyoto Protocol and Iraq Warby Michael Renner, United Press InternationalFebruary 5th, 2003WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- As discussion about the looming war in Iraq intensifies in the wake of George Bush's State of the Union address, one item conspicuously absent from news bulletins and pundits' pontifications is the Kyoto protocol.

VENEZUELA: Resumed Oil Production Marks Opposition's DefeatEFE News ServiceFebruary 3rd, 2003Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez confirmed Sunday that petroleum production in the country had risen to 1.8 million barrels a day, which represents the "defeat" of the opposition's strike in this economic sector.

South Africa: Mandela Condemns US Stance on IraqBBCJanuary 30th, 2003Former South African president Nelson Mandela has criticised US President George W Bush over Iraq, saying the sole reason for a possible US-led attack would be to gain control of Iraqi oil.

USA: US Begins Secret Talks to Secure Iraq's Oilfieldsby Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow, Julian Borger in Washington, Terry Macalister and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian/UKJanuary 23rd, 2003The US military has drawn up detailed plans to secure and protect Iraq's oilfields to prevent a repeat of 1991 when President Saddam set Kuwait's wells ablaze.

The World Bank has frozen the distribution of $225m in loans to Venezuela's oil industry until the country ''normalises''.

Russia: While Washington Waits, Chechnya Threatens to Explodeby William O. Beeman, Pacific News ServiceJanuary 8th, 2003The Republic of Chechnya is poised to explode, and the reverberations are likely to send shock waves throughout the world. Washington has chosen to do nothing about this, to the detriment of the United States and the globe.

Russia: Oil Giants Try to Beat US to Iraqi Reservesby Nick Paton Walsh, The GuardianDecember 11th, 2002Russian oil companies are trying to secure new contracts with Baghdad in an attempt to dominate Iraq's huge reserves and hold Washington to its promise of respecting Moscow's economic interests in the event of a regime change.

Canada: Parliament Backs Kyoto Ratification Planby David Ljunggren, ReutersDecember 11th, 2002OTTAWA -- The Canadian Parliament voted Tuesday to support government plans to ratify the Kyoto protocol on cutting greenhouse gases, overriding opponents who say the treaty will hurt Canada's economy.

Kazakhstan: Oil Money Threatens to Make Killing Fieldsby Paul Brown, The GuardianDecember 4th, 2002ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN December 4, 2002 -- The largest oil find for more than 20 years -- almost the size of the world's biggest, the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia -- is being developed in the Caspian Sea amid growing anger from the local people.

USA: Appeals Court Blocks California Offshore Oil Drillingby Cat Lazaroff, Environment News ServiceDecember 3rd, 2002SAN FRANCISCO, California, December 3, 2002 (ENS) -- For a second time, the courts have ruled against federal plans to resume oil and natural gas drilling off the California coast. A three judge panel from a federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that the government illegally extended 36 undeveloped oil leases off the central California coast, effectively blocking the renewal of the decades old leases.

EU: 'Rust Bucket' Tankers Blacklistedby Gareth Harding, UPIDecember 3rd, 2002BRUSSELS, Belgium, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The European Commission Tuesday published a list of tankers to be banned from EU waters after an aging vessel sunk off northwest Spain, dumping thousands of tons of oil into the Atlantic Ocean.

USA:Former El Paso VP Indicted on Bogus Trade ChargesReutersDecember 3rd, 2002A former vice president and natural gas trader from El Paso Corp. will appear before a U.S. magistrate in Houston on Wednesday to face charges he reported bogus trades to an industry journal in 2001, the prosecutor said.

UK: BP Chief Fears US Will Carve up Iraqi Oil Richesby Terry Macalister, The GuardianOctober 30th, 2002Lord Browne, chief executive of BP and one of New Labour's favourite industrialists, has warned Washington not to carve up Iraq for its own oil companies in the aftermath of any future war.

World: Skepticism Hangs over Climate Change Meetingby Ranjit Devraj, Inter Press ServiceOctober 23rd, 2002Another round of international talks on curbing global climate change began Wednesday in India, a country that sees the United States and the developed world as being part of the problem rather than the solution to global warming.

Burma: Oil Giant Denies Workers' Claim of Forced Laborby Kalyani, OneWorld South AsiaOctober 22nd, 2002French oil giant TotalFina-Elf flatly rejected accusations by a global trade union body Monday that its investments in Myanmar (formerly Burma) were directly linked to forced labor used for road-building and other heavy work around the Yadana oil pipeline off the country's southwest coast.

USA: Harken and Halliburton Back in the NewsThe Daily EnronOctober 10th, 2002First, the Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe let loose on W. Bush. The papers disclosed that while a director and paid consultant for Harken Energy Bush had actively participated in the creation of off-the-books accounting gimmicks to hide company debt and raise the company's stock price. The deal, which the company did in conjunction with Harvard Management, created an off-the-books partnership strikingly similar to the kind Enron used to accomplish the same goals -- and which Bush has condemned.

USA: Bush Oil Firm Did Enron-Style Dealby Greg Frost, ReutersOctober 9th, 2002BOSTON -- President Bush's former oil firm formed a partnership with Harvard University that concealed the company's financial woes and may have misled investors, a student and alumni group said in a report on Wednesday.

USA: When It's Over, Who Gets the Oil?by Dan Morgan and David B. Ottaway, Washington PostSeptember 16th, 2002WASHINGTON -- A U.S.-led ouster of President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and Iraqi opposition leaders.

Chad/Cameroon: World Bank OKs PipelineEnvironment News ServiceSeptember 16th, 2002WASHINGTON, DC -- The construction of a 650 mile long buried pipeline to carry oil from landlocked Chad in central Africa to Cameroon's Atlantic coast is one step closer to reality over the objections of environmental and human rights groups.

USA: Enron Puts Assets Up for SaleCNN/MoneyAugust 27th, 2002NEW YORK -- Bankrupt energy trader Enron Corp. started taking bids Tuesday for 12 assets, including electric utilities and natural gas pipelines, that make up a large portion of Enron's total holdings.

US: Government Secrecy and Corporate Crimeby Stephen Pizzo, Daily EnronAugust 27th, 2002What began with Vice President Dick Cheney's refusal 15 months ago to make his energy task force documents public expanded quickly to include policy making at virtually every level of government. And, after September 11, the blanket of secrecy - which had until then only covered the brass breasts of the DOJ's Lady Justice statue - darkened some of America's most valued constitutional protections.

NIGERIA: Women Stick to Oil Demandsby D'Arcy Doran, Associated PressJuly 13th, 2002Oil company executives thumped the table and even offered concessions, but the women who took over a giant oil terminal and trapped hundreds of workers inside did not budge Saturday in their demands for jobs for their sons and electricity for their homes.

Africa: Commission Hands Down Significant Human Rights Decisionby Jim Lobe, OneWorld USJuly 3rd, 2002Groups hailed Tuesday a sweeping and unprecedented ruling by Africa's premier human rights tribunal that held that the former military regime of Nigeria violated the economic and social rights of the Ogoni people by failing to protect their property, lands, and health from destruction caused by foreign oil companies and the Nigerian security forces.

World: Activists Oppose Public Financing of Caspian Oil Pipelineby Jim Lobe, OneWorld USJune 26th, 2002Sixty-four mainly European nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from some 37 countries are asking international financial institutions (IFIs), like the World Bank, and bilateral export credit agencies (ECAs), including the United States Export-Import Bank, to deny funding for a multi-billion-dollar oil pipeline project to run more than 1,000 miles from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, a Turkish port on the Mediterranean.

USA: EPA to Relax Pollution Rules for Power Plantsby John Heilprin, Associated PressJune 13th, 2002The Environmental Protection Agency will relax air pollution rules to make it easier for utilities to upgrade and expand their coal-burning power plants, Bush administration sources said yesterday.

US: Energy Task Force Documents Show Industry Influenceby Cat Lazaroff, Environment News ServiceMay 22nd, 2002Vice President Richard Cheney's energy task force met with industry representatives 25 times for every one contact with conservation and public interest groups, shows a review by the group whose lawsuit prompted the release of thousands of Energy Department documents. The review was released the same day that the energy agency delivered another 1,500 pages of previously withheld task force information.

Central Asia: World Bank Chief In Talks Over PipelineAgence France PresseMay 16th, 2002KABUL -- World Bank chief James Wolfensohn said Wednesday he had held talks about financing a fuel pipeline to channel massive gas reserves from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to India or Pakistan.

Costa Rica: Offshore Oil Drilling Scrappedby David Boddiger, Latinamerica PressMay 15th, 2002Environmentalists are praising Costa Rica's Ministry of the Environment and Energy for turning down a request from a US oil company to drill for oil along the Caribbean coast.

USA: Environmental Groups Look Ahead After Vote Against Oil Drilling in Arctic Reserveby Beth Bolitho, OneWorld USApril 22nd, 2002Following a vote in the United States Senate last week to block changes to a bill which would have allowed oil exploration and development of a fragile wildlife habitat in the Arctic, activists are now planning their next steps to ensure that the area remains protected from future environmental threats.

USA: Government OKs Drilling in Alaska Oil ReserveReutersApril 11th, 2002WASHINGTON -- The Interior Department on Thursday approved final rules to allow energy companies to share the costs and revenues from drilling for oil and natural gas on leased tracts in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve.

USA: Few Electric Companies Produce Majority of Polluting Emissionsby Cat Lazaroff, Environment News ServiceMarch 21st, 2002WASHINGTON, DC -- Just 20 electric utilities in the United States are responsible for half the carbon dioxide, mercury, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide pollution emitted by the 100 largest power generating companies in the nation, a new report finds. The study by a coalition of environmental and public interest groups found that between four and six companies account for 25 percent of the emissions of each pollutant.

US: Mine Workers Chief Arrested at Massey Energy ProtestEnvironment News ServiceMarch 15th, 2002United Mine Workers president Cecil Roberts was one of 11 people arrested Thursday at the site of a huge coal sludge spill as they demonstrated against the environmental performance of Massey Energy.

Latin America: Enron Fallout is a Hot IssueOil DailyMarch 4th, 2002The implications of Enron's dramatic fall extend far beyond US borders. The once-mighty energy giant's murky dealings in Latin America have emerged as a hot political issue throughout the region, where politicians in some countries are using it as an election tool or to take attention away from their own economic or political woes.

UK: Oil Giant BP Stops Political DonationsAssociated PressFebruary 28th, 2002LONDON -- BP PLC has announced it will no longer make political donations anywhere in the world, acknowledging that the relationship between corporations and government is under unprecedented scrutiny.

Ecuador: Oil Pipeline Project Under Fireby Jim Lobe, OneWorld USFebruary 21st, 2002Environmental activist groups from two continents have vowed to step up their fight against a foreign-financed pipeline project that would transport oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon to the Pacific after completing a 10-day tour along the 300-mile route.

USA: Enron Lobbyist Plotted Strategy Against Democratsby Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles TimesFebruary 11th, 2002While the Bush administration was drafting its national energy policy, a leading lobbyist for Enron Corp. was plotting strategy to turn the plan into a political weapon against Democrats, according to a newly obtained memo.

India: Enron's Debacle at Dabholby Sandip Roy, Pacific News ServiceFebruary 8th, 2002Enron's collapse may have begun with the kind of misadventures it engaged in half a world away among the quiet coastal villages of Dabhol, India.

AFGHANISTAN: Oil Execs Revive Pipeline From Hellby Daniel Fisher, Forbes.comFebruary 4th, 2002It has been called the pipeline from hell, to hell, through hell. It's a 1,270-kilometer conduit, 1.2 meters in diameter, that would snake across Afghanistan to carry natural gas from eastern Turkmenistan -- with 700 billion cubic meters of proven reserves -- to energy-hungry Pakistan and beyond.

USA: Halliburton -- To the Victors Go the Marketsby Jordan Green, Facing SouthFebruary 1st, 2002The influence of big energy corporations in the Bush Administration is no secret. But the story of Dick Cheney and his former company, Halliburton Co., has received little attention -- and it may be the most important.

USA: Fired Andersen Partner Refuses to Testify on Enronby Kevin Drawbaugh and Susan Cornwell, ReutersJanuary 24th, 2002A fired partner of auditor Andersen refused to testify to Congress on the destruction of evidence in the collapse of energy giant Enron, prompting lawmakers to say he was frustrating their probe.

USA: VP Tried to Aid Enron in Indiaby Timothy J. Burger, New York Daily NewsJanuary 18th, 2002Vice President Cheney tried to help Enron collect a $64 million debt from a giant energy project in India, government documents obtained by the Daily News show.

Ecuador: Oil Spill Contaminates AmazonEnvironment News ServiceJanuary 10th, 2002QUITO, Ecuador -- Oil from an abandoned exploratory oil well in the Ecuadorian Amazon is spilling uncontrolled into the environment months after government authorities were first notified, according to an international wildlife conservation group.

USA: Auditor Says Enron Documents Goneby Marcy Gordon, Associated PressJanuary 10th, 2002WASHINGTON -- The firm that audited the books of collapsed Enron Corp., Arthur Andersen LLP, disclosed Thursday that a ''significant but undetermined'' number of documents related to the company had been destroyed.

USA: Unocal Advisor Named Representative to Afghanistanby Patrick Martin, World Socialist Web SiteJanuary 3rd, 2002President Bush has appointed a former aide to the American oil company Unocal, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, as special envoy to Afghanistan. The nomination was announced December 31, nine days after the US-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai took office in Kabul.

China: Oil Workers Revolt Over Drilling RightsReutersDecember 19th, 2001BEIJING -- Their battle cry was ''Get to Work'' and they came in three shifts, but the Chinese oil drillers weren't brandishing their crowbars and wooden sticks as tools.

UZBEKISTAN: US Ally Hopes War Will Lead to Oil Investmentby Priscilla Patton, Globalvision News NetworkNovember 26th, 2001The Uzbek government hopes to parlay its close working relationship with the United States during the ''war on terrorism'' into closer economic ties, garnering much-needed direct investment for its underdeveloped petrochemical sector and increased bilateral trade, according to Sadyq Safayev, former Uzbek ambassador to the U.S. and first deputy foreign minister since May.

USA: Enron, Dynegy Confirm Possible Merger Talksby Jeff Franks, ReutersNovember 8th, 2001HOUSTON -- Enron Corp., plagued by investor doubts and under the gun to shore up its crumbling finances, said on Thursday it was talking with power trading rival Dynegy Inc. about a possible merger.

USA: Oil Firms Fund 'Tobacco Terrorism'by John Creed, Anchorage Daily NewsNovember 7th, 2001We interrupt our regularly scheduled sense of decency for the following heart-breaking news bulletin: A huge tobacco company is spreading disease across our state with help from Williams Alaska Petroleum and Tesoro Alaska.

USA: Court Throws Out Exxon Valdez Fineby Bob Egelko, San Francisco ChronicleNovember 7th, 2001A jury's $5 billion punitive damage award for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was too high compared to the damage caused and the sums the company already has spent for cleanup and compensation, a federal appeals court ruled today.

USA: The Real Price of Oilby Mark Hertsgaard, MotherJones.comOctober 15th, 2001Perhaps it's a sign of politics inching back toward business as usual: Congressional Republicans are exploiting the Sept. 11 terror attacks to push the Bush administration's plan for an all-out increase in energy production.

Australia: Police Move on Melbourne Climate ProtestorsEnvironment News ServiceSeptember 27th, 2001MELBOURNE, Australia -- Police have moved in to disband protesters opposing construction of a gas fired power generator and pipeline in Somerton, a Melbourne neighborhood. The demonstrators, from Friends of the Earth Melbourne, say the generator will destroy the fragile ecosystem of the Merri Creek today and over the weekend.

USA: It's the Oil, Stupidby Johnny Angel, LA WeeklySeptember 26th, 2001In the orgy of examination of who and what is to blame for the events of September 11, we must have heard every conceivable explanation. The American right, as exemplified by President Bush, Fox News and the opinion page of the The Wall Street Journal, blames envy of American values and success. The extreme right blames secular humanism, gay rights and the other bogeymen they love to flog. The center faults lax airport security and a general lack of preparedness, while the left, all but ignored by the corporate media, blames American imperialism and in some cases our unconditional support for Israel.

USA: Wartime Opportunistsby Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the CorporationSeptember 6th, 2001Corporate interests and their proxies are looking to exploit the September 11 tragedy to advance a self-serving agenda that has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with corporate profits and dangerous ideologies.

USA: Exxon CEO Draws Anger Over Climate Changeby Thaddeus Herrick, Wall Street JournalAugust 29th, 2001Like his predecessors, Exxon Mobil Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Lee Raymond keeps a relatively low profile. He's reluctant to grant interviews and make public appearances. But ever since he assailed the Kyoto initiative to combat global warming in a speech a few years ago, Mr. Raymond has been inextricably linked to the issue.

USA: Big Oil, Gas Funding Ads for Bush's Energy Policyby William E. Gibson, Orlando SentinelAugust 19th, 2001The big oil and gas companies that spent nearly $2 million to help elect President Bush last year are pouring millions more into an advertising campaign this summer to help sell his energy policy in Congress.

Germany: Climate Deal Is Weakby Bonner R. Cohen, Earth Times News ServiceJuly 24th, 2001One of the surest indications that trouble is at hand is when diplomats start hiding behind catchy phrases and meaningless terminology. Participants and observers to the COP-6 Climate Change conference here have been told that ''breakthrough,'' ''deal,'' or ''compromise'' (take your pick) had been achieved.

Colombia: Americans Blamed in Raidby Karl Penhaul, San Francisco ChronicleJuly 15th, 2001Three American civilian airmen providing airborne security for a U.S. oil company coordinated an anti-guerrilla raid in Colombia in 1998, marking targets and directing helicopter gunships that mistakenly killed 18 civilians, Colombian military pilots have alleged in a official inquiry.

Colombia: Oxy's Relationship with Military Turns DeadlyDrillbits and Tailings (Project Underground)June 30th, 2001New evidence has surfaced in a Colombian government inquiry exposing active collaboration between security forces protecting oil operations of the Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum (OXY) and the notorious Colombian military in one of the country' deadliest attacks on civilians.

Sudan: Oil Money Is Fueling Civil Warby Karl Vick, Washington PostJune 11th, 2001In a civil war that seems to be fueled by so much -- religion, for example, because one side is Muslim and the other side is not, and race, because one side is Arab and the other African -- nothing has supercharged the fighting in southern Sudan quite like Nile Blend crude.

KENYA: Japan Suspends Funding for Sondu Miriu Damby Jennifer Wanjiru, Environment News ServiceJune 4th, 2001Citing "environmental disruption and corruption" in a letter to the government of Kenya, Japan's Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka indicated that suspension of funding for the Sondu Miriu hydropower dam project was ''a response to criticism from environmental campaigners and differences between Kenya and Japan over further funding.''

USA: Bush Energy Plan Faulted, Ignores Human RightsReutersMay 31st, 2001A leading advocacy group has taken the Bush administration to task for failing to include human rights considerations in its new national energy plan, according to a letter obtained by Reuters yesterday.

USA: Bush Calls for More Coal, Oil and Nukesby Randall Mikkelsen, ReutersMay 17th, 2001President Bush called for expanding U.S. coal, oil and nuclear power production and offered conservation incentives on Thursday to beat back high gas prices, blackouts and ''a darker future.''

Nigeria: Shell Oil Spill Increases Tensions in OgonilandAllAfrica.comMay 8th, 2001Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) of Nigeria finally managed to cap the oil gushing from one of its wells in Ogoniland at the weekend, but the well's blow-out and the resulting flood of oil and gas into the immediate environment has once more intensified tensions between the giant oil company and the half-million strong Ogoni Kingdom.

USA: Cheney Vows to Stick With Fossil Fuelsby Cat Lazaroff, Environment News ServiceMay 1st, 2001The United States will focus on increased domestic production of oil and greater use of coal for electricity generation in a new national energy strategy to be announced in a few weeks, Vice President Richard Cheney said Monday.

USA: Bush Task Force to Recommend Alaska Drillingby Patricia Wilson, ReutersApril 23rd, 2001Seeking to clarify a muddied message on oil exploration in the Alaska wilderness, the White House said on Monday President Bush's energy panel would call for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

USA: Pipeline Leaks Oil on Alaska Tundraby Yereth Rosen, ReutersApril 17th, 2001A hole in a pipeline used for transporting by-products at the Kuparuk oil field on Alaska's North Slope has resulted in the biggest spill of industrial material onto the tundra in recent years, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) said on Tuesday.

Australia: Activists Discuss World Boycott of U.S. Oil FirmsAssociated PressApril 12th, 2001Green groups from around the world were drawing up a global action plan Friday that could include boycotts of U.S. energy giants to force the United States to honor its Kyoto greenhouse gas reduction commitments.

USA: 500 Protest Enron Plantby David Fleshler, Sun-SentinelMarch 27th, 2001More than 500 people packed the Pompano Beach Civic Center on Monday night in a formidable display of opposition to Enron Corp.'s plans for a power plant next to Florida's Turnpike.

Nigeria: Workers Buck IMFby William Wallis, Financial TimesMarch 22nd, 2001The Nigerian Labour Congress yesterday threatened to render Africa's most populous nation ungovernable if President Olusegun Obasanjo went ahead with plans to phase in the deregulation of fuel supplies in an attempt to end chronic shortages.

Sudan: Oil Firms Accused of Fueling Mass Displacement and Killingby Victoria Brittain and Terry Macalister, The Guardian (London)March 15th, 2001Oil companies operating in Sudan are complicit in the systematic depopulating of large areas of the country and atrocities against civilians, tens of thousands of whom have been killed and displaced from the areas around the oil fields, according to a report to be published today.

USA: Federal Worker Fired For Posting Refuge Mapby Lisa Getter, Los Angeles TimesMarch 15th, 2001Last week, Ian Thomas posted a map on a U.S. government Web site of the caribou calving areas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area the Bush administration wants to open up for oil exploration. This week, Thomas is looking for a new job.

USA: Bush's Reversal on Greenhouse Gas Cutsby Cat Lazaroff, Environment News ServiceMarch 14th, 2001President George W. Bush did an abrupt about face Tuesday, reversing a previous pledge to legislate limits on carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants. Bush said such a rule would prove too costly, launching another in a slew of recent federal and state government attempts to roll back environmental protections in favor of controlling energy prices.

USA: The Unimog, Daimler's New PolluterDeutsche Presse-AgenturFebruary 22nd, 2001DaimlerChrysler announced plans Wednesday to produce a version of the German military vehicle, the Unimog, for sale in the United States, with production planned to begin in January.

ECUADOR: Nationwide Protests End with Triumph by Indiansby Kintto Lucas, Inter Press ServiceFebruary 7th, 2001The nationwide protests or ''uprising'' by Ecuador's indigenous people that has brought much of this Andean nation to a standstill over the past two weeks ended Wednesday with the signing of a pact with President Gustavo Noboa, who agreed to lower the price of gasoline, one of the demonstrators' main demands.

Ecuador: Army Crackdown Leaves Four Indian Protesters Deadby Kintto Lucas, Inter Press ServiceFebruary 5th, 2001The protests by indigenous groups against the government's economic austerity policies have brought large areas of the country to a standstill for the past two weeks, intensifying Monday when four people, including a child, were killed when the army cracked down on demonstrators in the Amazon province of Napo.

Pakistan: Shell Under Fire for PipelineEnvironmental News ServiceJanuary 29th, 2001Environmentalists have taken multinational oil giant Shell to court over its plans to build a pipeline for mineral and gas exploration in Pakistan's Kirthar National Park.

Nigeria: Ogonis Say Arms Were Sponsored by Shellby Ahamefula Ogbu and Chuks Akunna, AllAfrica.comJanuary 25th, 2001The multinational oil giant, the Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC) was yesterday accused of importing arms and ammunitions into the country with which destabilisation was engendered in the Niger Delta.

USA: Ten Worst Corporations of 2000by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the CorporationJanuary 3rd, 2001Here is the annual Top 10 Worst Corporations of 2000 list compiled by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman. This year, rushing to the head of the pack of irresponsible biotech companies was the French corporation Aventis, the maker of Cry9C corn, sold under the name StarLink.

USA: Cheney Made Millions Off Oil Deals with Husseinby Martin A. Lee, San Francisco Bay GuardianNovember 13th, 2000During former defense secretary Richard Cheney's five-year tenure as chief executive of Halliburton, Inc., his oil services firm raked in big bucks from dubious commercial dealings with Iraq. Cheney left Halliburton with a $34 million retirement package last July when he became the GOP's vice-presidential candidate

USA: Corporate Giants Begin Greenhouse Gas Trading Programby Danielle Knight, Inter Press ServiceOctober 18th, 2000Seven corporations, including several of the world's largest multinational companies, have joined with an environmental group in seeking ways to trade emission permits to reduce their production of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. But critics say the partnership is just more of the same hot air from the world's fossil fuel industry.

USA: Corporate Giants Begin Greenhouse Gas TradingInter Press ServiceOctober 18th, 2000Seven corporations, including some of the world's largest multinational companies, have joined with an environmental group in seeking ways to trade emission permits to reduce their production of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.

USA: Chevron-Texaco Merger CriticizedInstitute for Public AccuracyOctober 16th, 2000Chevron has just agreed to acquire Texaco for $36 billion. This follows the BP-Amoco and Exxon-Mobil mergers. The following analysts are available for comments.

USA: Government Ties Helped Cheney and Halliburton Make Millionsby John Rega, Bloomberg NewsOctober 6th, 2000While the comment came in a light-hearted exchange with his Democratic opponent Joe Lieberman, Cheney's reply left out how closely Dallas-based Halliburton's fortunes are linked to the U.S. government. The world's largest oil services firm is a leading U.S. defense contractor and has benefited from financial guarantees granted by U.S. agencies that promote exports.

USA: Koch Industries Indicted for Air, Hazardous Waste Violationsby Brian Hansen, Environment News ServiceOctober 2nd, 2000A Texas based oil conglomerate and four of its employees were indicted last week on 97 counts of violating federal clean air and hazardous waste laws. The charges come less than one year after the company was slapped with the largest civil penalty ever levied under federal environmental statutes.

USA: Shell to Face Lawsuit for Saro-Wiwa Executionby Karen McGregor, The IndependentSeptember 19th, 2000Allegations that the oil multinational Shell aided and abetted the torture and murder of Nigerian activists including the executed writer Ken Saro-Wiwa will be tested by a full jury trial in New York, after the oil company's attempts to have the case thrown out were rejected.

USA: Chevron Will Pay $7 Million for Clean Air Violationsby Cat Lazaroff, Environment News ServiceAugust 24th, 2000Chevron USA, the second largest U.S. oil company, has agreed to pay a $6 million fine and spend $1 million on environmental improvements to settle a federal lawsuit over Clean Air Act violations at a California offshore oil terminal.

Bangladesh: Shell Oil Drilling Threatens Tiger Preserveby Jonathan Leake, Sunday Times of LondonAugust 20th, 2000SHELL, the Anglo-Dutch oil company, is planning to survey the world's biggest tiger reserve after company geologists pinpointed it as one of the richest potential sources of oil and gas on earth.

USA: Oil Corporations Woo DemocratsAssociated PressAugust 14th, 2000While Democrats will be partying all across Tinseltown this week, these events go far beyond typical convention-week soirees. Each is aimed at the Democrat who would take over a key committee if the party managed to regain control of Congress in the November elections.

USA: U'wa March Trashes Goreby Tamara Straus, AlterNetAugust 14th, 2000To put it mildly, the U'wa are a touchy issue for Gore. The presidential candidate owns between $500,000 and $1 million in Occidental stock and his father, Al Gore Sr., served as chair of the board for 28 years, earning an annual salary of $500,000. The elder Gore was such a close political ally of the company that Armand Hammer, Occidental's founder and CEO, liked to say that he had Gore ''in my back pocket.''

India: World Bank Admits Failure of Coal ProjectUN WireAugust 14th, 2000According to the report, thousands of villagers in eastern and central India received no compensation after state-owned Coal India used a $530 million loan from the World Bank in 1997 to raze their homes in a coal mine modernization scheme. Although resettling, compensating and retraining farmers as entrepreneurs was part of the loan deal, Coal India had no experience in these activities and was unable to carry them out.

USA: BP's Arctic Oil Project Stalled as Greenpeace Occupies Bargeby Neville Judd, Environment News ServiceAugust 7th, 2000The environmental group Greenpeace International says it took the action this morning because British Petroleum's (BP) Northstar Development will fuel global warming and open the Arctic to offshore oil expansion.

USA: Dick Cheney's Oil ConnectionsDrillbits and Tailings (Project Underground)July 25th, 2000Having ensured the continued flow of cheap oil from the Gulf by waging a war with Iraq, and after his boss, George Bush's ouster from office by Clinton in 1992, Dick Cheney turned his attention to the corporate world.

USA: Fronting for Big Coalby Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the CorporationJuly 11th, 2000So, we're sitting in our office, and under the door comes a note advising us that there will be a press conference the next day where African-American and Hispanic groups will release a report showing how minority populations will suffer most if the United Nations Global Warming Treaty (Kyoto agreement) passes the U.S. Senate.

USA: Time to Cap Big Oil's Profit Gusherby Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the CorporationJuly 3rd, 2000The startling concentration of economic power that has resulted from the U.S. merger wave of the last several years is going to require new levels of government intervention in the marketplace.

USA: Oil Money Gushing into Bush Campaignby H. Josef Hebert, Associated PressJuly 3rd, 2000WASHINGTON -- While locked in a string of disputes with the Clinton administration, the oil industry has pumped more than $1.5 million into George W. Bush's campaign. Oil companies will be seeking Bush's help on a range of issues, should he be elected president.

Nigeria: Court Fines Shell $40 Million for 1970 SpillEnvironment News ServiceJune 26th, 2000PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria -- A Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt has ordered Royal Dutch/Shell to pay US$40 million in compensation for an oil spill which happened in 1970 in Ogoniland.

USA: ExxonMobil Shareholders Use Stock to Push Changeby Jonathan Fox, Dallas ObserverJune 8th, 2000As with other behemoth multinational companies, Irving-based ExxonMobil's annual meeting is strictly a formality. Most of the crowd that packed the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in downtown Dallas to vote on shareholder resolutions last week were retirees who own relatively small amounts of company stock.

USA: Occidental Chairman Sues Protestors for Harassmentby Timna Tanners, ReutersApril 4th, 2000The chairman of Occidental Petroleum is staging his own protest against the human rights groups who picket his home and office --he is suing them for harassment and wants a court to grant him damages.

USA: Oxy CEO Confronted by U'wa Leader in Congresswoman's OfficeEnvironment News ServiceMarch 30th, 2000A surprise encounter in the Congressional office of Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney today brought the vice president of Occidental Petroleum face to face with the president of the U'wa indigenous people who are fighting the company's oil drilling on their traditional land in Colombia.

Burma: US Oil Giant Pulls Out of CountryAgence France PresseMarch 29th, 2000Oil services provider Baker Hughes has become the latest United States firm to pull out of Burma, human rights campaigners and the firm's local partner said Wednesday.

Philippines: Strike Over Gas Hike Paralyzes Southern Cityby Edwin O. Fernandez and Charlie C. Sease, Philippine Daily Inquirer (Internet Edition)March 23rd, 2000Jeepney drivers and operators, slumdwellers and other sectoral representatives yesterday took to the streets to demand an oil price rollback and the resignation or ouster of President Estrada.

USA: General Motors Quits Global Warming Lobby Groupby David Goodman, Associated PressMarch 15th, 2000Environmentalists are claiming victory following General Motors Corp.'s decision to quit a lobbying group that has led the opposition to a 1997 global warming treaty reached in Kyoto, Japan.

Netherlands: Greenpeace Buys Shell StockAssociated PressMarch 14th, 2000The Amsterdam-based environmentalist group announced the purchase of $240,000 worth of Royal Dutch/Shell Group equity to try to pressure the Anglo-Dutch energy conglomerate to build a huge solar panel production plant.

JAPAN: People Power Overcomes Nuclear Powerby Jonathan Watts, The Guardian (UK)February 23rd, 2000Japan's nuclear power industry suffered a historic defeat yesterday when one of the country's biggest utilities was forced to scrap plans for a power plant that it has been trying to build for 37 years.

World: Who is Paying the Cost of Our Fuel Bills?by George Monbiot, The Guardian WeeklyFebruary 10th, 2000The effects of global warming are cruelly ironic: the impact of fossil-fuel consumption will be most severe in regions where the least fuel has been consumed. Sub-Saharan Africa is becoming drier: in East Africa droughts of the kind that used to strike every 40 years are arriving every four or five.

Canada: Oil Company Targeted for Ties to Sudanese Militaryby Mark Bourrie, Inter Press ServiceFebruary 7th, 2000An oil company headquartered in Alberta, Canada, is the target of a divestment campaign aimed at forcing the company to stop its partnership with the Sudanese government in the exploitation of oil fields in the war-torn southern region of Sudan.

USA: Closing the Lid on the Chlorine Industryby Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on CorporationsJanuary 31st, 2000Thornton is a research fellow at Columbia University's Center for Environmental Research and Conservation. His forthcoming book, Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health and a New Environmental Strategy (March 2000, MIT Press), argues that chlorine and the organochlorine chemicals made from it pose a global health and environmental threat.

A Movement Blossoms: Cross-Border Activism Picks Up Speedby Kent Paterson, BorderlinesOctober 20th, 1998In October 1998, after years of protest by an unprecedented bi-national coalition, the proposed Sierra Blanca nuclear waste dump was defeated. The proposed site for the commercial nuclear waste dump was just 16 miles from the Texas-Mexico border.